Sustainable Solutions – Our 2020 Goals

The third pillar of our 2020 sustainability strategy is sustainable solutions which focuses on the life cycle impacts of products. We have completed eight 3rd party reviewed ISO 14044 compliant life cycle assessments covering a total of 21 different product types – according to two fundamentally different modelling approaches.

Integrate sustainability in product & process development and complete life cycle assessment for all main product categories.

Examples of Sustainable Solutions

We have also used life cycle assessment to quantify how our ingredients effect our customer’s value chain. This shows a tremendous potential to reduce our customers environmental footprints. Ultimately it is through collaboration with our customers and stakeholders we can make the biggest contribution to sustainability.

In addition to the environmental benefits, significant health benefits – a vital component of social sustainability - can also be achieved through DuPont Nutrition & Health innovations. That’s why we are members of the FReSH initiative, a joint initiate between EAT and the World Business Council For Sustainable Development, focused on transforming the global food systems towards more sustainable and healthy diets.

An LCA of isolated soy protein shows that a 50% replacement of beef protein (with soy protein) in all beef burgers in US could reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 79 million tons CO2e annually. This translates into removing 17 million average US cars from the streets.

A comparative LCA of a wood based xylitol (Xivia®) sweetener to the competing corn cob based xylitol shows a 5-10x decrease in carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of an average pack of chewing gum (with only 5% xylitol content) is reduced by about 40% as a result!

Our protective bacteria culture in the HOLDBAC® range has proved to maintain fresh cheese flavour and improving shelf life of white cheese by 200%, resulting in an estimated reduction of waste of 50-60%